Made up with trusted provider who said they would charge for appointment not cancelled 24 hours ahead of time three weeks ago when we took an after-hours emergency foster care placement that no one else in the county had room for

Homeschooled my child, who read more than 20 pages in addition to regular workbook pages

Didn’t argue with any family members all day

Got homemade dinner on the table, even with no-water-down-the-drain (see above)

Drove child to yet another hockey practice

Got the sewer clog fixed

Was happy it wasn’t ICE (have you read the Eastern US weather??)

Didn’t cry when it was probably baby wipes

All five children in bed and sleeping by 9:00

Ran 1 load of dishes after drainage fixed (see above)

Didn’t ban partner from playing hockey tonight, even though they blew-out their back so bad a month ago (playing hockey) that they could barely get out of bed, let alone do dishes

Watched Empire

Went to bed

]]>https://multiracialsky.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/real-to-do-lists/feed/0NatashaSky_rainbowhairmultiracialskyNatashaSky_rainbowhairMy Mentorhttps://multiracialsky.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/my-mentor/
https://multiracialsky.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/my-mentor/#commentsThu, 12 Feb 2015 04:57:01 +0000http://multiracialsky.wordpress.com/?p=1214Continue reading]]>I first met Otis Woodard when I was 12. It was November before Thanksgiving, and I was in 7th grade. It was a bad year for me in school. I was about 65 pounds, looked like I was maybe 10. And I was in junior high. I obviously wasn’t ‘dating’ anyone. I was years away from real puberty. But that all has nothing to do with Otis.

My mom and I watched a TV movie one night about a young mom, and how her life falls apart. It ended with her leaving her daughter in a park after calling Otis to let him know that the child would be there. Otis arrives and picks the child up while the mom hides and watches. After the movie was over, someone interviewed the real Otis. I decided I wanted to meet him.

The first time we met, I told him I wanted to help a child in need. A woman walked by as we were talking, and then Otis walked us to her house where there was her family with six children (four girls, two boys), the oldest just a year or two younger than me. Their electricity was off, and the older children were doing their homework by candlelight; they warmed themselves from a fireplace. This was the late 1980s. I had $75 of babysitting money I planned to spend to help a single child, money that suddenly seemed like nothing for this family of eight who clearly needed much much more.

My parents talked that night and came to me the next day to tell me they wanted to spend the money they set aside for charitable donations at the end of each year to help this family, alongside me. This was the start of my relationship with Otis, nearly three-quarters of my life ago.

Otis lives in a very rough neighborhood. He has been there, living and serving his community, as far as I can gather, for more than 50 years. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and joined the civil rights movement when MLK came through his hometown. When MLK moved on, Otis and his young family went with him.

He has something like 27 children. I know at least the youngest 7 personally. I have a permanent picture in my mind of one of his sons cradling my infant daughter on his shoulder. His hair was in long, thick golden cornrows and he was wearing his basketball uniform. He was maybe ten years old. Like all of Otis’ children, his name is Otis. If you ask about this tradition, he says it’s so there will always be an Otis Woodard there to run the Outreach after he is gone.

After battling cancer for many years, I am sad that time may be closing in on us, the time when we will have to accept a ‘new’ Otis (or Oteese, as his beautiful youngest daughter is known) into our hearts as the head of the Outreach where the original Otis has long held a place.

Otis and I do not agree on everything. He is a very religious person, and I am not. But this has not stopped him from continuously loving on me during our semi-annual visits and helping me see and accept that my life’s work with children is my mission. Many of us who have known him over the years have been inspired by his smile, his colorful tunics and beads, his laugh, his stories, and his ever outreaching arms. He is love personified, and wherever he is off to for the next phase of his existence, our love will go with him.

I can only hope he knows how many lives he continues to touch, and what a hard-working, real-life, service legacy, and what an amazing family, he will leave here on this earth to continue his always needed work.

We love you Otis.

]]>https://multiracialsky.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/my-mentor/feed/2Natasha_Sky_Otis1multiracialskyNatasha_Sky_Otis1Accomplishments*https://multiracialsky.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/accomplishments/
https://multiracialsky.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/accomplishments/#commentsMon, 26 Jan 2015 18:21:06 +0000http://multiracialsky.wordpress.com/?p=1210Continue reading]]>This minimal collection of information below makes me feel proud of what my child has accomplished in the past three weeks. It also makes me feel a little sick at the wasted time in the past few school years (and that I know continues daily for my three children attending traditional school).

More to the point, I know that traditional school struggles to connect with and reach my child in part because my child is Black. This particular child of mine is smart, whip smart. Finished kindergarten and most of first-grade-level academic work in their homeschool kindergarten year (and then went on to gain ZERO academically in their first grade year at school, but that’s another story). I’m not saying my child is ‘easy’ (they’re not), but their untapped academic potential makes me worried for every Black child in this school system, in most school systems. It’s the system that’s the main problem, and I can’t fix that in time for this child of mine to get an educational fair shake at this point. So we’ve returned to homeschooling. As parents, we’ve set aside our philosophical belief in public education and our belief in families well-versed in social and racial justice issues keeping themselves involved in public schools for the good of all children. We’ve made the choice that is best serving our child, and our family. With three kids still attending two different public schools, we haven’t pulled out completely.

However, sometimes ideals and reality are forced to meet and shake hands. And here’s our reality: In less than three school-weeks, my child has accomplished the following in the area of traditional academics:

157 workbook pages

50% of grade-level Math for the year has been mastered

On pace to complete the entire grade-level year of Language Arts by mid-March

Double-time Spelling (2 lists/tests a week)

Read out loud 68 consecutive pages in a chapter book (Level N)

Read independently 103 consecutive pages in a chapter book (Level O)

NOTE 1: We started in January with beginning-of-the-school-year grade-level work. So far, all concepts we have encountered together are ‘new’ to my child. As parents, our primary considerations in choice of school—and in our return to homeschooling—are not academic. However, the obvious academic deficits in our bright child with no ‘learning differences’ are disturbing.

NOTE 2: We are not sitting at the kitchen table doing workbooks 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. On the contrary, we do school-work only when sibs are also in school, and we have had some significant diversions (3-day emergency foster placement of a one-week-old baby, visiting a private school, errands, and a 3-day school week). This child also plays on a hockey team that has 4-5 hours of ice time each week, including practices and games.

*This is not intended to be a bragging post. This is intended to be a what was my child doing all day at school?? post.

If you lined up all my elementary homeschooling years back to back to back, this is my 15th year teaching elementary school. I design my own curriculum, and it changes some every year. However, I have definitely established favorite workbooks for basic academic subjects, and I thought I’d share these resources with you.

SUPPLEMENT: I use micro-focused Kumon workbooks for all sorts of skills that need a little extra reinforcement, as well as School Zone math workbooks

I’m using Evernote to track our work this time around, with a Homeschool Notebook and a new list-based note for each 7-day week. I’ve used a paper planner to track work in the past, but this will be easier to compile and organize everything for our year-end report. Also, in the past 3 years I have almost completely switched to tracking everything in my life with lists on the computer, instead of lists in notebooks and on scraps of paper.

I’m still holding on to the big Ansel Adams calendar on the kitchen wall, though. No Google calendar for me yet.

In this season of my life, I am circling around. I am again spending my days doing some things I was doing a decade or more ago, things I did for many years and then stopped. I am homeschooling, researching cloth diapers, and fixing tiny braids in little curls and tufts of hair. I have bottles, formula, and funny spoons with long handles sitting in my dishwasher. My dining room table hosts a math workbook, two pencils, a grip, a pink eraser, lip balm, and a stack of Ladybug and Spider magazines. Flashcards and library books have joined the lonely sock bin on the coffee table.

Although the base level is familiar, much is different this time around. For one thing, I am different. My four children are older (and helpful—who knew how much easier it is to have a baby with an older child who can help, if only for 10 minutes). I am homeschooling with two kids at home, not four. I’ve done this before—and my kids learned what they were supposed to (even when I was sure they were not). I’ve done babies, a lot of babies. I’ve brushed and washed and styled kinky-curly hair for many years now. I’ve got 13 years under my belt of raising kids, of raising Black daughters.

This time around, I have a sense that, no matter what happens, everything is going to be ok. And if it isn’t—that will have to be ok too; there aren’t really any other options. I only have so much control. Being a foster parent has helped me acknowledge this. As a foster parent the only thing I really have control over is my foster child’s daily life/experience when they are physically in my house. Some of my foster kids have had visits with parents/family members up to five days a week. Some have had full-time child care—carers chosen by their parents, not me. There is very little time in those situations to establish a new normal for a foster child.

There are ups and downs to the perspective of being a foster parent (versus being just the parent). I can very much be in the now with my foster child. I have to be. There most likely will not be a long-term plan for this child that I am involved in. I get to feed and clean and comfort and teach and snuggle this little one today. I don’t get to nor do I have to worry about whether they will be able to live independently as an adult. In the cases we’ve had so far, that has not been my job. I’ve been the for-now-mama not the forever-mama.

The two I have at home with me all-day-every-day right now, just thinking about their connection makes me smile. I am full-time raising and educating these two proud brown girls who will someday become strong Black women. I am also full-time raising, part-time educating my other three multiracial children. I do have my hands full (still), and—honestly—I love it.